Saturday, 22 February 2014

Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse

This is a beautifully packaged book, with glossy purple
edging and shiny silver bits all over the inside covers. It even has a free little book (written by a
mouse) tucked into the end. All this
you’d expect from an illustrator as acclaimed as Chris Riddell, but what I
discovered with this book is that he’s a pretty good children’s writer as well.

Told with warmth and humour, this is the tale of Ada Goth,
who lives in Ghastly-Gorm Hall with her grief-stricken father, who believes
that children should be heard but not seen.
As she hardly sees him, Ada has plenty of time to explore her rambling
old home and pick up some interesting friends (and enemies) on the way.

This book is full of fantastic characters. As well as Lord Goth, who loves to gad about
on his hobby horse, shooting gnomes with his blunderbuss (rendering him mad,
bad and dangerous to gnomes) there’s Mrs Beat’Em the fearsome cook, plus a host
of other servants, not to mention the ghosts, including the ghost mouse of the
title. Then there Goth Hall itself,
which is full of places to explore such as the Broken Wing, the Dear Deer Park
and the Lake of Extremely Coy Carp, all delightfully illustrated with wit and
humour.

This whole book is a delight – a worthy winner of the Costa
children’s book award.

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